Upma

Hello boys and girls!

Welcome to cooking with Varun! After a battery of main courses, it is now time for a breakfast dish. The good news is, it takes only a fraction of the effort you'd normally put into a main course dish and the better news is, it's delicious!

Back in 2011, I was living in Antrim, Northern Ireland with a couple of my mates (and the odd refugee). One was beer chugging, eat-everything Goan carnivore who liked nothing better than to flop down in front of the telly and watch a movie marathon. The other was a big-talking, vegetarian UPite who loved sleeping in, despised all forms of exercise and wandered around in his tighty-whiteys. Then there was me, the keep-your-feet-off-my-clean-floor, football obsessed Punjabi who believed in 'a place for everything, and everything in it's place'. Despite our radically different personalities, we co-existed quite brilliantly and it was these lads that actually got me into cooking.

Some time in late 2011, on a Sunday morning, when I had a handle on most simple dishes, I decided to try my hand out at poha under the not-so-watchful guidance of hungover roommate #1. If you've made poha before, you know that when you run the poha through water, you only dampen it, but in my enthusiasm, I made it sopping wet which made it terribly clumpy. I consulted with my bleary eyed roommate who gave me a double thumbs up (to make me stop talking, I suspect) and I forged on. After it was cooked, I roused roommate #2 with a promise of a surprise breakfast and it wasn't long before we were seated around the kitchen table, sunlight streaming through the window, stuffing our faces. After several minutes of just the sound of spoons on plates (and a few mmmms), roommate #2 said (in his fatherly tone), 'Beta, upma to bahut badhiya bana hai!'. After snorting out a chunk of poha through his nose, roommate #1, explained that it was poha, not upma, to which, roommate #2's only response was, 'Oh bh*%^&$d'.

 

I can assure you, however, that this recipe, is the real upma recipe, and is no way poha in disguise.

For upma, you will need the following:

Sooji (semolina)                      1 cup

Onion                                      1 small to medium

Green chillies                           3-4

Mustard seeds                          small handful

Kadhi patta (curry leaves)         small handful

Red chilli powder                     1 tsp (optional)

Salt                                         to taste

Water                                      3 cups

Coriander leaves                      small handful

Lemon

Oil

 

Prep:

1. Chop the onion.
2. Chop the chillies.
3. Chop the coriander leaves.

Method:

1. Turn on the gas.
2. Bung a pan on.
3. Add in the sooji.
4. Spread it around and keep moving it until it is a toasty light brown.
5. Set aside.
6. Bung another pan on. (Or the same one after you've taken your toasted sooji out of it.)
7. Splash in some oil.
8. Count to 20.
9. Bounce in the mustard seeds.
10. Roll in the chillies.
11. Toss in the kadhi patta.
12. Duck to avoid a flying mustard seed.
13. Drop in the onion.
14. Cook until the onion goes translucent.
15. Sprinkle in the salt (and red chilli powder.)
16. Add in the water.
17. Mix.
18. Slowly add in the toasted sooji. (Stir as you add it to avoid lumps.)
19. Slap on the lid.
20. Wait about 5 minutes
21. Take the lid off.
22. Cook until the upma reaches the desired consistency.
23. Turn the gas off.
24. Serve with a sprinkle of coriander and a sqeeze of lemon juice.
25. Stuff face.
26. Bask in the glory of your successfully executed dish.

  

Tip: You can add veggies if you like. Boiled peas and carrots are the usual suspects that go in before you add the salt and water.

And remember, overeating is a myth. A full tummy is a happy tummy!

Lemon Sriracha Baked Fish

Hello boys and girls!

Welcome to cooking with Varun! My readers (that's you lot) will know that not very long ago I made a little trip to Spain where I (predictably) stuffed my face with all the food the country had to offer. On our first day in Madrid, after walking what felt like several hundred miles from the tube station to our hotel, my friends and I were quite understandably, as the British put it, a little peckish. So we checked into our room to dump our bags, washed up, and set off in search for sustenance before a hard day's touring. As luck would have it, there was a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant a couple of minutes away from our hotel and after a quick conference, we made a beeline towards it with (which if depicted by Hanna-Barbera) little spinning images of spring rolls, noodles and chilli chicken in our eyes. We placed our order and as we waited for our food to arrive, we happened to spy a bottle of what looked like a chilli sauce sitting on the adjacent table. Being the chilli lovers that most Indians are, we asked for it and took a little to taste. After a series of ooohs and ahs, we discovered that the sauce in question was a chilli and garlic sauce called sriracha. Now, I had heard about this little gem and read about it but I hadn't ever tasted it and I was not disappointed. So upon my return to the UK, a quick online search revealed where I might be able to get some and after coaxing my friend to drive me to the store one lunch time, I was soon the proud owner of my very own bottle of sriracha sauce!

After several days of 'srirachaing' everything, I stumbled across a picture of a baked dish that I thought would be perfect and after adding my own little twists, Lemon Sriracha Baked Fish was born! The great thing about this dish is that it takes next to no time to make. Prep is about 10 minutes and baking time is another 10-12. I used atlantic cod, but you could use whichever fish you want; salmon or cobbler or bass.

Also, as a side note, a few days ago, when I cooked this dish, my roommate was concerned about a black spot on the nose of one of our landlady's cats and I told her to wipe it knowing full well that it was his natural colour. After a few minutes and several hilarious failed attempts on her part to wipe the offending spot, I broke the news to her and watched with glee as her face went from brown to crimson with embarrassment (or rage, one can never be sure with girls) in the space of 3 seconds.

But never mind.. my bruises will heal.. On to the recipe!

For Lemon Sriracha Baked Fish, you will need the following:

Fish	4-5 big fillets (cod or salmon)
Butter	big knob
Lemon juice	from half a lemon
Honey	1-2 tbsp
Sriracha sauce	2-3 tbsp
Pepper	sprinkle
Salt	to taste
Parsley	to garnish

Prep:

1. Chop the parsley.

Method:

Lemon sriracha butter:

1. Turn on the gas.
2. Bung a pan on.
3. Drop in the butter.
4. Watch it melt into a golden pool.
5. Squeeze in the lemon juice.
6. Pick out the pips that drop in with the juice.
7. Add in the honey.
8. Squirt in the sriracha sauce.
9. Mix well.
10. Twist in some freshly ground pepper.
11. Sprinkle in some salt to taste.

Fish:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.
2. Grab an oven tray.
3. Cover it with greaseproof paper.
4. Slap the fish on the paper.
5. Uniformly pour over the lemon sriracha butter.
6. Slide the tray into the oven.
7. Wait 10-12 minutes.

To serve:

1. Get the fish out of the oven and onto a plate.
2. Sprinkle on some chopped parsley.
3. Serve with a nice salad. (Or skinny fries. Or both.)

Tip: Taste as you cook. If your butter is too lemony, you can offset the tang by adding in some more honey.

And remember, overeating is a myth. A full tummy is a happy tummy!